The Firebug

by Roy J. Snell

  CHAPTER XVI THE STRANGE BLACK CYLINDERS

  The forenoon was all but gone when Johnny stirred in his bed, then sat upabruptly to stare about him. He had been dreaming, and woven into the webof his dreams was the face and figure of his one time fellow adventurer,Panther Eye, known familiarly as "Pant." He had dreamed of seeing thedark fights and narrow escapes, and had dreamed of seeing red lightsagainst a night sky, and blinding white flares. In his dreams he hadagain fought a mountain feud. All this with Pant at his side.

  "I wish he were here!" Johnny exclaimed as he threw back the covers andleaped from his bed. "He'd put the thing together letter by letter, wordby word, like a cross-word puzzle, and somehow make a whole of it. Thefire at the school; the pink-eyed stranger; the more terrible fire thatendangered Mazie's life; the big stooping man with a limp; the fire atthe Zoo; my experience at Ben Zook's island and at the marsh; for him allthese would fit together somehow. But to me they are little more thanfragments of the sort of stuff life's made of. Where's the affair to end?I'd like to know that."

  Seizing a pen, he wrote a telegram to Pant. Pant, as you will rememberfrom reading that other book, "The Hidden Trail," had remained behind tofinish a task he had begun in the Cumberland Mountains.

  "No," Johnny said to himself after reading the telegram, "he wouldn'tcome," and he tore the paper in four pieces and threw it in the wastebasket.

  Drawing the fragment of a black cylinder from his pocket, he studied itcarefully.

  "That ought to mean something to me," he mumbled, "but it doesn't; not athing in the world."

  From a box in the corner he dragged a desk telephone, the one he hadsalvaged from the Zoo.

  "This," he said, "would tell a story if only it could talk. And why can'tyou?" He shook his fist at the instrument. "What's a telephone for if notfor talking?"

  Since the instrument did not respond, for the twentieth time Johnnyunwound its wires and sat there staring at them. There was the usual pairof rather heavily insulated wires and a second pair of lighter ones,about twenty feet long.

  "I ought to know what those second wires are for," he said again, "but Idon't. I told the Chief of Detectives about it, and he laughed at me andsaid: 'Do you think there's someone with a tongue hot enough to set fireto a house just by talking over the telephone? There's some hot ones, butnot as hot as that!' He laughed at his own joke, then saw me politely outof the room, thinking all the time, I don't doubt, that I was a young nutwith a cracked head. So, old telephone, if your secret is to be revealedyou'll have to tell it, or I'll be obliged to discover it."

  Putting the telephone back in the box, he took the jewel case frombeneath his pillow. As he saw the jewels in the light of day he was moresure than ever that they were genuine.

  "I fancy," he mused, "that the Chief of Detectives will be a trifle moreinterested in this than in my telephone, though in my estimation it's nothalf as important. But of course there's sure to be a reward. I mustn'tforget that. It's to be for Ben Zook."

  The Chief of Detectives was interested, both interested and surprised. Heset his best clerk working on the record of stolen diamonds. In less thanfive minutes the clerk had the record before him.

  "These diamonds," he said, looking hard at Johnny, "were stolen fromBarker's on Madison Street two weeks ago last night. The value is fourthousand dollars."

  "And the reward?" said Johnny calmly.

  "Eh, what?"

  "How much reward?"

  "Nothing's been said about a reward."

  "All right. Good-bye." Calmly pocketing the case, Johnny started from thedoor.

  "Here! Here! Stop that young fool!" stormed the Chief of Detectives.

  "Well," said Johnny defiantly, "what sort of cheap piker is this manBarker? It's not for myself, but for a friend who needs it."

  "Tell me about it," said the detective, bending over and beckoning himclose.

  Johnny told the story so well that the Chief got Barker on the wire andpried an even five hundred dollars out of that tight fisted merchantbefore he would promise the return of the diamonds.

  "That'll set your friend Zook up in business," smiled the Chief ofDetectives as a half hour later he handed Johnny a valuable yellow slip."And say, weren't you in here a day or two ago with some story about atelephone and a firebug?"

  "Yes sir."

  "Didn't take much stock in it, did I?"

  "No, you didn't."

  "You bring that back and tell me about it again. I thought you were afresh kid and a bit addled, but by Jove, you've got a head on yourshoulders and it ain't stuffed with excelsior above the ears, either."

  "I'll do what you say," said Johnny, "but first I'd like to run downanother hunch if you don't object."

  "No objections. Run down as many as you care to. Bring 'em all in. MebbyI can help you, and more'n likely you can help me."

  Johnny left the place with a jubilant heart. He had enough money now tobuy Ben Zook a small ranch. He knew the very place, a half acre, tenmiles from the city limits, a sloping bank with oak trees on it and acabin at its edge, and a touch of green pasture land with a brook at thebottom. Wouldn't Ben Zook revel in it? And wouldn't his salvaged poultrythrive there?

  He wanted to row right out and tell Ben about it at once. Had he beenable to read the future he would most assuredly have done so, but sincehe could only see one step ahead, and had planned to revisit the marshand have a look at that black shack at its edge, in the end he cashed thecheck for five hundred and deposited it in a savings account for safekeeping. After that he took a train for the marsh.

  An hour later, with a feeling of dread that was not far from fear, andwas closely connected with his startling and mysterious experiences ontwo other occasions, he found himself approaching the black shack.

  Since this shack was built on the side of the marsh nearest to the lake,it was flanked by low, rolling sand-dunes. This made it easy for Johnnyto approach the shack without being seen by anyone who might be inside.

  After crawling to within fifty feet of it he lay down behind a low clumpof willows, determined to watch the place for awhile. After an hour ofpatient watching, his patience deserted him. Gripping something firmly inhis hand, he advanced boldly forward until he was within arm's reach ofthe building.

  There for a time he stood listening. His footsteps on the sand made nosound. If there were people in the shack they could not be aware of hisapproach.

  Nerving himself for quick action and possible attack, he stepped roundthe corner to look quickly in at the window.

  Then he laughed softly to himself. There had been no need for all thisprecaution. Inside the shack was but a single room. In that room therewas one person, and that person lay stretched full length upon a couchwith his face turned toward the wall. To all appearances he was soundasleep.

  Seeing this, Johnny proceeded to make a calm survey of the room. In onecorner stood a table and chair. On the table were dirty dishes, an emptycan, and a loaf of bread.

  In a back corner stood a rifle, and across from that some strange lookingblack cylinders. It was the cylinders that interested Johnny. Butrealizing that he could get a better look at them from the only otherwindow of the place, he contented himself, for the moment, with a carefullook at the man. The face could not be seen, but there was about thelarge, heavy frame and rounded shoulders something vaguely familiar.Still, after all was said and done, Johnny could not be sure that he hadever seen the fellow before, and certainly he did not feel disposed towaken him to find out.

  He passed around to the other window and for a full five minutes studiedthose black cylinders. They were strange affairs, about four inches indiameter and two feet in length. They resembled huge firecrackers coatedblack. Instead of fuse, however, each one had on its end two small shinyscrews such as are found at the top of a dry battery.

  "Probably what they are," was Johnny's mental comment, "just big drybatteries."

  Yet he could not quite convince himsel
f that this was true. In the end,however, he concluded that was the nearest he could come to it at aguess, and since a guess was all he was to get that day, he moved awayfrom the cabin and was soon lost in the sand dunes.

  "Never saw any batteries half that big," he grumbled to himself as hetrudged along, "and besides, what would he be doing with them out here?"

  Again he trudged forward for a half mile in silence. Then, of a sudden hecame to a dead stop, turned about, made as if to retrace his steps, thenappearing to think better of it, stood there for a moment in deepmeditation.

  "It might be true," he murmured to himself. "It don't seem possible, yetit might be, and if it is, then the fellow could be miles away when thething happens. And if it is true, then that solves it."

  "But then," he added thoughtfully as he resumed his march toward thestation, "it seems altogether too fanciful."